Data Protection Manager 2010 Beta Released

Microsoft released a public beta of System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010 on Tuesday.

The release follows a community technology review by more than 50 Microsoft customers, according to Anand Kamat, group product manager for the DPM team, in a blog post. DPM 2010 is a backup and data recovery tool formerly known as "Zinger" or "DPM v3" and part of the System Center management product line.

The beta of DPM 2010 can be downloaded at the Microsoft Connect page here.

DPM 2010 will eventually succeed Microsoft's DPM 2007 Service Pack 1 product, which was released in January. According to a Microsoft spokesperson, "the next version" of DPM 2010 will be available in the first half of 2010.

The beta includes a number of improvements over the previous release, according to Microsoft. DPM 2010 beta can protect virtual machines moved across cluster shared volumes on Windows Server 2008 R2 using Microsoft's live migration feature. This feature also extends to Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V servers.

DPM 2010 beta also provides centralized client protection for Windows-based PCs (from Windows XP to Windows 7 versions). With this release, the backup protection for laptop clients was "completely built from scratch," according to Kamat. Backups can be set to take place while laptops are online or offline, according to Microsoft's description of the beta.

The beta has an auto-grow feature that can "extend the replica volume as the production data grows," according to the blog. It also includes automatic error fixing of the replica volume via the auto-rerun or auto-cc functions.

A single DPM 2010 server can support "up to 100 servers, 1,000 laptops, or 2,000 databases," according to Microsoft. The beta extends protection to SQL Server 2008 and other Microsoft server products, as well as to the upcoming Exchange 2010 and SharePoint 2010 servers.

For those wanting more information, Microsoft plans to describe the changes made with the DPM 2010 beta release in a public webinar on Oct. 8 at 9 a.m. Pacific time. The general public can sign up for it here.